“People have always asked me to find solutions to the impossible,” said Preben Hansen, the General Secretary of NGO Fontana which runs a treatment program for drug and alcohol addicts in
With support from Danida, the Danish NGO and their local partner are looking for a new location to set up a new centre for people who have completed the first part of their treatment. Most of them still need help to finish the last part which is a combination of treatment and education in order to get back into the society.
Binh Minh Centre
NGO Fontana is the only organisation in
“If you follow this program, you can stay clean for the rest of your life. If you don’t you will end up in a drug or alcohol abuse again”, says Preben Hansen.
Being an alcoholic himself, he knows what he is talking about. “I will be in recovery for the rest of my life, as long as I don’t drink. Isn’t it wonderful?
Together with his practitioner Ragnar Larusson he took the initiative to start treatment for drug and alcohol addicts in
He initially came to
“When I came I thought – what a nice country, but I just can’t be bothered to stay”. But during a taxi trip from the airport he changed his mind.
“It was harvest time and we were driving thought a rice field. Suddenly I saw about 100 young Vietnamese girls and boys impeccably dressed in white and blue passing by us on black bicycles. I saw that there was such dignity to these people. That was the moment I decided to stay”.
Preben Hansen is today the manager of the companies Euro Care and Domus Medica
The centre currently has 68 patients. 21 of them have chosen to follow the treatment program offered by NGO Fontana. 4 of these are former patients who receive special training in order to become the first Vietnamese 12 step assistant counsellor. The treatment is free, but patients have to pay for their own food and medication. In some cases NGO Fontana is able to help out economically via the Club 24 Foundation.
“The patients come from all parts of society. They are students, businessmen, fathers, mothers and prostitutes”, says Per Larsen, who is in charge of the daily treatment and training.
The patients live in rooms of four to eight people. “You would think they would prefer to have their own room to get some peace in their life. But Vietnamese are used to stay a lot of people together. To isolate them is actually the worst punishment for a Vietnamese drug addicts,” said Hansen.
Treatment
When someone arrives at the centre he or she is send directly into detoxification. “This can last from a few days to several weeks,” said Per Larsen. “After this period we conduct a screening to figure out what this person has been through and what kind of treatment the person need,” explained Larsen.
Per Larsen started working at the Binh Minh Centre ten months ago. The first period was a part of his internship in his education as a counsellor. As well as with all other counsellors in NGO Fontana, he is a drug addicts in recovery himself.
“It’s our policy here, that our counsellors must be drug or alcohol addicts in recovery themselves but they must have been clean for a minimum of 2 years ”, says Preben Hansen. “Counsellors are worthless if they have not been addicted to drug or alcohol them selves. Only then they can understand the devil and madness inside our heads”.
Vietnamese Culture
The next project for Preben Hansen is to find a location for new centre where people who have completed all of the treatments can find support for the next few years.
“There are no centres like that in
“We have tried to set up support groups, but in
is illegal,” said Preben Hansen. However, Per Larsen points out, that
“A very positive thing about the Vietnamese way of thinking is Buddhism,” explained Per Larsen. “One of the elements in the treatment is about leaving your faith in drugs and find faith in something bigger. You must start believing that there is something more to life. Something bigger than drugs. Something bigger than yourselves. Thinking like that is not as hard for a Vietnamese Buddhist as it is too for the rest of us”.
Preben Hansen agreed. “In this way